So, now do you believe me? The stock market was rigged.
But now that another news organization has finally gotten off its lazy butt, I’ll tell it again: Under former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, confidential government information was regularly leaked to select people on Wall Street.
By giving confidential information to a roomful of traders, Paulson had to understand he’d influence the price of Fannie and Freddie stock and, by extension, the whole market.
He’d also be giving the people receiving that information a chance to cheat — to rob public investors who weren’t lucky enough to be invited to such meetings.
And that brings me to last week.
According to other journalists’ reports, the Federal Reserve voted on Monday, Nov. 28, to approve a financial bailout for Europe using our dollars. That’s the same day that the stock market staged a strong rally, which turned out to be only a preliminary event to the 400-plus point surge the Dow would have two days later — after the rest of us found out about the European bailout.
Was it just a coincidence that the stock market rallied nicely on the day of the Fed vote? Or was information from that Fed’s Open Market Committee leaked by someone to friends on Wall Street?
Over the last year, US corporate leaders have often explained layoffs by saying the positions were...
